This invention relates to an infeed apparatus in general and, in particular, to apparatus particularly well adapted for feeding billets or like articles into a forging press or like machines. The invention is directed more particularly to such apparatus capable of feeding articles into a desired machine in either of two different attitudes.
The streamlined forging system is known in which billets are successively chuted from a heating furnace, a cutter, or the like, down to an infeed mechanism, thereby to be transported into the forging press. The billets are fed into the press in either an upstanding or recumbent attitude, depending upon the configuration of the forgings to be made. The use of two chutes of different cross sectional shapes has been common for feeding the billets in upstanding and recumbent attitudes respectively.
The infeed mechanism itself has also been usually constructed to transport billets in either an upstanding or recumbent attitude only. The use of the conventional infeed mechanism for both purposes has been either impossible or, if not quite so, has required a prolonged period of changeover time, involving the exchange of parts on a considerable scale. Thus the conventional apparatus for feeding billets into a forging press or the like has not been well adapted for the production of a wide variety of forgings in limited quantities.